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Comment by satya71 | Hacker News Reader

This is the favored tactic of Indian government when trying to intimidate the press (or politicians).

[1] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/it-raids...

It was also a part of Putin's playbook, before he took the silk glove off the iron fist and moved to just jailing and murdering opponents.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/ho...

It is interesting that it took Western media to blow the whistle.

You could write books about everything that is wrong with my country (many people do) but independent journalism is sacrosanct.

It's identical to the Western response to the Iranian government murdering many thousands of their people (who were protesting) prior to the pandemic. Versus the response to the Khashoggi murder by the Saudis. Both reprehensible regimes, the media treated one death as being particularly special. Going by the massive coverage of Khashoggi, you'd get the impression thousands of murders is less important than one, and you'd be right re the Western media's obvious bias (they dislike Saudi Arabia more than Iran, and Khashoggi was one of their own).

The Iranian government was already known to be terrible to its people. The Saudis ordering an assassination _abroad, using their embassy, in such a violent way on a dissident_ made a lot of people aware of the problem that was the new Saudi regime which had some Western alignment. It’s not that this death was more important, it’s just revealed a big change in Saudi Arabia

Which ignores the vast gap between coverage in the one murder vs the thousands of murders. The bias was on open display, and it's a perceived political alignment issue (Saudi Arabia is quite friendly with US conservatives traditionally and far more hostile to US liberals; ~95%+ of journalists in the US vote left and they're rarely shy with their bias in the Trump era; Saudi was relatively friendly toward Trump and it's openly hostile toward Biden; all of this is quite obvious).

The news media is looking for new news, not old news. An ally killing someone in their embassy is new news; a regime of disrepute killing protestors is the same old story.

It's the same reason why election fraud in the US or Europe gets coverage when it's just a couple votes, but Russia's elections don't get much coverage. Everyone knows Russia's elections are a joke, but someone getting arrested for voting their deceased relative's ballot is unexpected.

It's not a measure of importance, it's a measure of newness.

exactly, it's what I wanted to point out but you did it better

It's a pattern repeated in many places. Single large events, a school shooting, the Khashoggi murder, big chemical spills, always get more coverage than repeated/ongoing or smaller events. IMO it's less a judgement on importance than a result of novelty or shock. Over time as events fall into routine people get bored of them so news naturally moves on. Look at the coverage of the Ukraine war it's dropped off a cliff since the early days of the invasion because we're in both the winter lull and there's not much novel to report about it every day.

Blow the whistle on what? Nothing in that documentary is new, most Indians know it. It has been reported and widely covered by Indian press before. It is just new to you (or the west).

You are forgetting one thing - most Indians knew it and believed it back in 2001 but now there's a whole generation who has been brainwashed to believe that the whole western world's media is against India because they don't want to see India be a power. They genuinely believe in this. These are the people who were probably 5 year olds then and are now in their late 20s or early 30s.

Obviously they don't think why they want to be a "superpower" when we still don't have clean water and our air is getting worse (literally unliveable by global standards)

Most Indians still know, it has been covered continuously these past two decades. Or maybe I am in the wrong information bubble. BJP’s political opponents won’t allow anyone to forget it.

Most people don't know all the details. They see news that court did not find any evidence and that's all they hear. Everyone wants to stay in a bubble of their liking.

When Europe banned Russian press was that press intimidation?

Is India afraid of being invaded by Britain? :-)))

It's not like the British haven't done it before, though.

There was no united Indian state though, as the Mughals were falling and the Marathas were just a confederacy. Plus neither of them had nukes.

Russian press that was banned was because they were conducting disinformation, “an operational tool in its assault on Ukraine” https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...

It is repression of journalism/press and saying "but they're bad/wrong" is just a label applied by the powerful to their enemies

So in your logic anyone can say whatever they like and there is no control at all, so lies can spread by malicious actors. I disagree and value this minimal control when exercised properly with checks, which is the case in europe

If people cannot be trusted to distinguish between information and misinformation, and you are a person, how can you then say that you have determined that the BBC documentary Modi has banned is not misinformation? Either people have to be shepherded through the library or they don't.

I didn't determine, but the BBC has a well deserved reputation as do its journalists. Also if Modi had nothing to hide, why these persecutions as opposed to focusing on disputing alleged facts with evidence

I'm not sure if the BBC documentary is comparable to what RT has been doing.

You have people like Margarita Simonyan calling for violence against Ukranians, Anton Krasovsky calling for the murder of Ukrainian kids, etc.

Has the BBC done anything like that in the past, say, 50 years?

RT were banned, and for a specific reason, whether or not you agree with it.

If the Indian government have a legitimate complaint against the BBC they should do the same.

This is harassment, designed to intimidate, without providing an actual (valid or not) reason, or being an actual sanction.

Russian press was intimidated and banned by Putin.

The Russian state propaganda outlets operating abroad stopped being even slightly press-like a long time ago.

FWIW, the same is true for the old country ( people and related companies are reviewed by IRS equivalent ). Some things never change I guess.

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